You type your business name into Google, scroll, and your website isn't there. Maybe a directory listing shows up, or a competitor, or a company with a name a lot like yours. It's a frustrating feeling, especially after paying for a website.
The good news: there's almost always a plain reason, and most of them can be fixed without starting over. Here's how to find out which one you're dealing with, and what to do about it.
First, check whether Google knows your site exists
Before changing anything, find out which problem you have. Go to Google and search for site:yourdomain.com, with your own address and no spaces. This asks Google to list every page it has saved from your site.
- Nothing comes up. Google hasn't added your site to its index yet, or something is telling it not to. Start with the next two sections.
- Your pages come up, but not when you search your name or your service. Google knows about you, it just isn't ranking you yet. Skip ahead to the sections on your Business Profile and your pages.
If you want the full picture, set up Google Search Console. It's free, it's Google's own tool for site owners, and its Pages report tells you exactly which pages are indexed and why the others aren't. Nearly every fix below starts there.
Google hasn't found it yet
A new website doesn't show up the day it goes live. Google has to discover it, crawl it, and decide to keep it, and for a brand new domain that can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.
You can help it along:
- Add your site to Search Console and verify that you own it. Your domain provider can usually do this with one record.
- Submit your sitemap. Most websites have one at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml. It's a list of every page you want found.
- Ask Google to index your main pages. In Search Console, paste your homepage into URL Inspection and click Request indexing. Do the same for your most important pages, a handful a day.
- Link to it from everywhere you already are. Your Google Business Profile, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and any directories. Every link is another way in.
After that, it mostly takes patience. Requesting the same page over and over won't make it go any quicker.
Your site is telling Google to stay away
This one is more common than you'd think. While a website is being built, it's normal to hide it from search engines so half-finished pages don't get indexed. The trouble is when that setting never gets switched back off.
A few places to look:
- WordPress: under Settings, then Reading, make sure "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" is unchecked.
- Wix and Squarespace: check the SEO or site visibility settings, and make sure the site isn't still password protected.
- A noindex tag. Some sites carry a hidden line in their code that tells Google not to index the page. Search Console's URL Inspection will tell you if it finds one.
- The robots.txt file. Visit yourdomain.com/robots.txt. If you see "Disallow: /" on its own, the whole site is blocked from crawlers.
If any of these turn up, fix the setting and request indexing again. This is usually the quickest win on the list.
You might be searching for the wrong thing
Showing up for your business name and showing up for what you do are two different things. Someone searching your business name already knows you. Someone searching "window replacement near me" is choosing between you and everyone else in town, and that takes longer to win.
Your own name should come up first, usually within weeks of being indexed. Ranking for the service itself is a longer game that builds over months, and how long SEO takes walks through what to expect along the way.
One more check: search from a private window, or with your location set to where your customers are. Google tailors results to the person searching, so what you see at your desk isn't always what a customer sees across town.
Your Google Business Profile is missing or half done
For a local business, the map results at the top of the page often matter more than the website links below them. Those come from your Google Business Profile, not your website, and a thin or unclaimed profile can keep you off the map entirely.
- Claim and verify it if you haven't. It's free.
- Add your website address, and make sure it's the exact one your site lives on.
- Pick the right categories. Your main category matters most, so choose the one that describes what you actually do.
- Keep your name, address and phone number the same everywhere, on your site, your profile and every directory.
- Add photos, your hours and your services, and keep them current.
- Get reviews, and reply to them. How to get more Google reviews covers how to ask without it feeling awkward.
Your pages don't say enough
Google can only rank you for what your website actually says, in words. A lot of small business sites are one long page with a slogan, a few photos and a phone number, and that gives Google very little to go on.
- Give each service its own page. One page for window replacement and another for door installation will beat a single "Services" page listing both.
- Say where you work. Name the towns and areas you serve, in plain sentences, not just in a footer.
- Use the words your customers use. If people search "AC repair," don't only call it "climate solutions."
- Put important words in text, not in pictures. Text baked into an image or a banner graphic is mostly invisible to Google.
- Write clear page titles. The title is the blue link in the results. "Window Replacement in Springfield | Northside Windows" tells Google, and the person searching, far more than "Home."
What a small business website needs goes through which pages earn their place.
Google can only rank you for what your website actually says.
Google thinks you're someone else
If your business name is close to a bigger brand, or to a common word, Google may assume people meant the other thing. We know this one well. Our own name is one letter away from Stratasys, a large 3D printing company, and for a while searching for us brought up them.
You can't out-shout a big brand overnight, but you can make it very clear who you are:
- Use your full name and what you do together, the same way everywhere: "Northside Windows, window replacement in Springfield," not just "Northside."
- Link your website and your profiles to each other, so Google can connect them as one business.
- Add business details to your site's code. A short block of structured data (schema) tells Google your name, logo, contact details and social profiles directly.
It doesn't work well on a phone
Google looks at the phone version of your site first, because that's how most people will see it. If pages are slow to load, text is tiny, or buttons are crammed together, that counts against you.
Run your homepage through PageSpeed Insights, Google's free checker, and open the site on your own phone with mobile data rather than Wi-Fi. Is your website too slow? explains what the scores mean and which fixes to make first.
It disappeared after a redesign
If your site used to show up and then vanished after a new website went live, the old page addresses were probably changed without pointing them to the new ones. Every old link, bookmark and search result suddenly leads nowhere, and the trust Google had in those pages is lost.
The fix is a redirect from each old address to the new page that replaced it. Search Console's Pages report will show the old addresses as "Not found (404)." Website redesign: when to fix it and when to start over covers how to rebuild without losing your rankings in the first place.
A quick checklist
If you only have half an hour, work through these in order:
- Search site:yourdomain.com to see if Google knows your site exists.
- Set up Google Search Console, verify your site and submit your sitemap.
- Check that nothing is blocking search engines: the platform setting, a noindex tag or robots.txt.
- Request indexing for your homepage and your main service pages.
- Claim and fill out your Google Business Profile, with your website address on it.
- Make sure each service has its own page, with your towns named in the text.
- Test your site on your phone and in PageSpeed Insights.
Most sites that go missing are fixed somewhere in that list. If you've been through it and still can't find yourself, or you'd rather someone else handle it, that's what our SEO and website work is for. Tell us about your site and we'll take a look.
